Steve Jobs was so angered by Android and HTC that he reportedly told then …

Walter Isaacson's forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs is on a kind of crypto-PR tour, having magically landed in the hands of a gaggle of journalists well in advance of its publication. Said journalists are furiously typing with one hand and flipping pages with the other, bringing us glimpses of the year's most anticipated biography of a recently deceased mega-icon of technology. Yesterday, for instance, it was revealed that Jobs regretted delaying potentially life-extending surgery in the very early days of his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. Now in a wide-ranging survey of the biography, the AP reports that Jobs' disdain for Android was much greater than that for any other competitive product.

According to Isaacson, Steve Jobs' reaction to the January 2010 unveiling of the HTC smartphone lineup was fury. Calling it "a great theft," Jobs supposedly proclaimed, "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong... I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Jobs meant it. Apple would kick off the lawsuits shortly thereafter, and the company hasn't been ignored itself. Countersuits have been filed, and as we have reported on Ars, just about everyone is suing everyone else.

Of course, lawsuits are usually made to be settled, but Jobs was having none of it. Meeting with then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a man who for years sat on Apple's board before Android made that no longer possible, Jobs told Schmidt that money wasn't going to make it right. "I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it," Jobs reportedly said. "I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." And with that, the door to any possible settlement was slammed shut. We wonder if Jobs' passing will open the door to lawsuit settlements down the road.

Isaacson's book, Steve Jobs will hit store shelves on Monday, October 24, and the Ars review of the book will be up shortly thereafter, so keep an eye out for it.

That's just funny. Apple never innovated or created anything. They took the ideas of others, turned them around, and made them "better" (if you like Apple stuff, that is). From the very first when they took PARC's work and make it their own--and then tried to sue Microsoft for doing the same thing, they've been "stealing it first". Of all the hubris... if you listen to Apple's "Mine! All mine!" view of the world, then... oh, well--old story... bored now.

So what Woz and Jobs did with Apple I and the Apple II wasn't original?

And PARC borrowed heavily from other people's work too, but let's not let that get in the way of your puerile world view.

Openness - at the whim of Google, unless Google decides they don't want to release their source code. (Honeycomb.)

That's because Honeycomb wasn't really ready for proper release, but the iPad and the tablet makers made them no choice. The next Jelly Bean release will be the proper tablet OS release.

Which does nothing to negate the fact that Android's openness is dependent on Google's whim.

You're not seriously suggesting that android is less open than iOS even when Google's whim is to be less open are you, because that would be absurd. If that's not what you're suggesting then what's your point? That Android could be more open? Well that's obviously true. So... moving on.

I'm suggesting that "Android is about openness and freedom" is marketing bullshit.

Android was in development for years before either iPhone or WP7. Google bought it, packaged and released it - the iPhone was nowhere to be seen when it was bought, nor was the Windows Phone anything other than a laughable toy. What's more, the technology and techniques were already old in Android before WP7 and iPhone copied and refined them - a factor that Sir Steve the Shit-faced seemed to ignore every time he was challenged on it

Seriously, buddy; I hate the "X is better because I's a sheep, baaa" crowd probably as much as you do; but at least check your facts out first.

Neither did you. Remember when you visited PARC so many decades ago (ironically shortly before your copycat of our GUI, which you called Lisa, was produced)? See attached for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook - oh my, look at that from even before the 1970's? You must be feeling all red-faced.

40 Bazillion dollars could really help a lot of people. I would love to be so rich and out of touch some day.

I say bazillion because that number isn't even fathomable to me. 1M would take me 25 years to make if I were tax free. Almost 40 years to make with 35% tax. It would only take me a million years if I were tax free to make 40B....

Android was in development for years before either iPhone or WP7. Google bought it, packaged and released it - the iPhone was nowhere to be seen when it was bought, nor was the Windows Phone anything other than a laughable toy. What's more, the technology and techniques were already old in Android before WP7 and iPhone copied and refined them - a factor that Sir Steve the Shit-faced seemed to ignore every time he was challenged on it

Seriously, buddy; I hate the "X is better because I's a sheep, baaa" crowd probably as much as you do; but at least check your facts out first.

why would an OS that had been developed for years (your words) change its direction so radically after the iphone's launch?

Because it made good business sense with the emergence of touch-screen devices? Are you trying to insinuate that no other company has changed or tweaked a product before release due to what's going on in the industry and marketplace?

Shit, even if you ignore the Newton, the iPad is still significantly different from anything that has existed before. Mainly due to the OS being an OS designed for a touch screen. Rather than a fully featured OS being crowbar'd on to a device that it has abso-fucking-lutely no right to be on. There's a reason tablets were a joke before the iPad. That reason is Windows.

Neither did you. Remember when you visited PARC so many decades ago (ironically shortly before your copycat of our GUI, which you called Lisa, was produced)? See attached for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook - oh my, look at that from even before the 1970's? You must be feeling all red-faced.

Stop stealing our stuff and calling it yours, deadbeat.-PARC

Jobs legally obtained rights to use the Xerox GUI the same way Microsoft legally obtained the rights to use the Mac GUI.

Neither did you. Remember when you visited PARC so many decades ago (ironically shortly before your copycat of our GUI, which you called Lisa, was produced)? See attached for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook - oh my, look at that from even before the 1970's? You must be feeling all red-faced.

Neither did you. Remember when you visited PARC so many decades ago (ironically shortly before your copycat of our GUI, which you called Lisa, was produced)? See attached for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook - oh my, look at that from even before the 1970's? You must be feeling all red-faced.

Wow, what a bastard. I guess Jobs really was a seriously major asshole. He's literally pulling a Ballmer with that line!

Steve Jobs: "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong... I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."And Later:"I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it," "I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want"

Steve Ballmer: "I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again," "I'm going to fucking kill Google."

I mean, seriously? Sure he wasn't as BAD as Ballmer in some ways, but in other ways he was just as bad. Hell, didn't Jobs fire people in elevators occasionally?

Aside from all that, it's going to be interesting to to try booting up a classic Palm device to compare with iOS and Android. Primitive yes, but as he first big success among small-screen touch devices it's got some UI design heritage living on here.

You know a lot times i get thinking the same thing when ever I come across my palm 3xe. I even remember a slide to lock gesture that you could turn on. Where you slide you stylus down the screen and that locked the device.

Openness - at the whim of Google, unless Google decides they don't want to release their source code. (Honeycomb.)Freedom - of the carriers to load down your phones with crapware and handset manufacturers not to update their operating system.

<rant>Personally, I am getting a little sick of these not Open Sourcing Honeycomb comments.

If you bother to read any articles from or about Google and Honeycomb, you will know that Honeycomb was patched together quite quickly and is a grand bloody mess. This is not the type of code you want realease. Google has repeatedly stated that when it is ready to be realeased they will release it. The fact that the source for the Samsung Nexus is already out there means that they are one step closer to releasing Honeycomb code because a lot of the features from Honeycomb are in the IceCream release.</rant>

Openness - at the whim of Google, unless Google decides they don't want to release their source code. (Honeycomb.)Freedom - of the carriers to load down your phones with crapware and handset manufacturers not to update their operating system.

<rant>Personally, I am getting a little sick of these not Open Sourcing Honeycomb comments.

If you bother to read any articles from or about Google and Honeycomb, you will know that Honeycomb was patched together quite quickly and is a grand bloody mess. This is not the type of code you want realease. Google has repeatedly stated that when it is ready to be realeased they will release it. The fact that the source for the Samsung Nexus is already out there means that they are one step closer to releasing Honeycomb code because a lot of the features from Honeycomb are in the IceCream release.</rant>

I think a lot of people have a hard time differentiating between an open platform and a community built platform.

Openness - at the whim of Google, unless Google decides they don't want to release their source code. (Honeycomb.)Freedom - of the carriers to load down your phones with crapware and handset manufacturers not to update their operating system.

<rant>Personally, I am getting a little sick of these not Open Sourcing Honeycomb comments.

If you bother to read any articles from or about Google and Honeycomb, you will know that Honeycomb was patched together quite quickly and is a grand bloody mess. This is not the type of code you want realease. Google has repeatedly stated that when it is ready to be realeased they will release it. The fact that the source for the Samsung Nexus is already out there means that they are one step closer to releasing Honeycomb code because a lot of the features from Honeycomb are in the IceCream release.</rant>

If Google wants to trumpet the fact that Android is "open" then they should act open all the time, not just when it isn't inconvenient for them.

Openness - at the whim of Google, unless Google decides they don't want to release their source code. (Honeycomb.)Freedom - of the carriers to load down your phones with crapware and handset manufacturers not to update their operating system.

<rant>Personally, I am getting a little sick of these not Open Sourcing Honeycomb comments.

If you bother to read any articles from or about Google and Honeycomb, you will know that Honeycomb was patched together quite quickly and is a grand bloody mess. This is not the type of code you want realease. Google has repeatedly stated that when it is ready to be realeased they will release it. The fact that the source for the Samsung Nexus is already out there means that they are one step closer to releasing Honeycomb code because a lot of the features from Honeycomb are in the IceCream release.</rant>

Sorry Jobs, but ideas and concepts are not patentable. Only implementations, processes and design. You can patent the code for doing something, like solving a fluid dynamics problem; but if someone writes a different set of code that solves the problem a different way, thats not infringement.

Say my concept is a cure for cancer or a levitating car. I can't patent that. Say I patent a drug used in treatment of breast cancer. I can do that. If someone else comes up with another drug, I don't own that.

Well, the steam engine was invented by the Greeks around 100 AD. Noone cares for who invented something when he isn't able to put it to work or doesn't see how to make products with it that change the landscape for all of us.

And sometimes you just need strong-willed yelling assholes with a vision to make things happen. There's no lack of people with good ideas who are never able to pull through with them or to convince others.

By the way, I'm not looking forward to weeks of Ars throwing tasty tidbits ripped out of that bio to the foaming masses here.

I love my macbook. Jobs comment could mean that his so called inventions are common things and should not have been granted a patent. Some of the patents he applied for are common sense stuff and already exist. I saw one patent application about hooking up bicycle sensors to the iphone. hell, there are already things like that on the market. Why the hell patent it. Come up with something original.

If Jobs could have gotten away with patenting the wheel he would have. What about patenting the idea of breathing.

He did, though, didn’t he? Not directly with lawsuits, but certainly in terms of growth and reclaiming lost marketshare (as well as taking over some markets completely).

I don’t think settlements are on Apple’s agenda anytime soon. Not as long as they can annoy the heck out of Android vendors, at least.

Also Eric Schmidt is an asshole. He even looks the part. I keep wondering how the "Jobs is an ass" people never even consider just how much of a breach of trust (no matter how much was purely subjective from Jobs’ side) pizzaface Eric commited when he did the whole "It’s not like Blackberry anymore, it’s more like an iPhone!" dance.

But hey, at least now Android is also copying Windows Phone 7 more, that’s something.

Android was in development for years before either iPhone or WP7. Google bought it, packaged and released it - the iPhone was nowhere to be seen when it was bought, nor was the Windows Phone anything other than a laughable toy. What's more, the technology and techniques were already old in Android before WP7 and iPhone copied and refined them - a factor that Sir Steve the Shit-faced seemed to ignore every time he was challenged on it

Seriously, buddy; I hate the "X is better because I's a sheep, baaa" crowd probably as much as you do; but at least check your facts out first.

Dude, some of us here actually had Android developers phones, okay. Please don't try and pretend that Android didn't jump from being a BlackBerry rip off to an iPhone rip off almost over night.

The Jehovah's Witnesses will have direct competition soon... As for the topic itself, yeah, steve had every single prerogative to do as he pleased, but honestly, this just shows what a hypocrite he truly was. Competition generally takes forms in numerous products more or less providing similar experiences to the user - and it just so happens that Google saw the many shortcomings of Apple's strategy, both technical and business, in relation to the iphone, and thus felt (and seemingly, correctly so) that it had a viable solution: the android platform. I tried the iphone, it's nice; I own an android, it's also nice - and I only care about one thing: having choices. Apple didn't want consumers to have options... Even with competition as a factor, Apple still didn't provide its own userbase with real options.

Pathetic, yes iOS was the first OS to use a grid of icons and a touch screen.

Steve is being ridiculous and so is the rest of Apple in their constant claims to have invented everything which if you go down the list is just FACTUALLY not true. I am so tired of hearing their bitching.

Wow, what a bastard. I guess Jobs really was a seriously major asshole. He's literally pulling a Ballmer with that line!

Steve Jobs: "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong... I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."And Later:"I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it," "I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want"

Steve Ballmer: "I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again," "I'm going to fucking kill Google."

I mean, seriously? Sure he wasn't as BAD as Ballmer in some ways, but in other ways he was just as bad. Hell, didn't Jobs fire people in elevators occasionally?

It seems Jobs was more of an asshole and more stubborn. Ballmer was just more prone to sweating and throwing chairs.

What a fricken insane control freak.The reason he hated Android was that it wasnt Apple's.Oh and Android actually let people have CHOICE.That was the all-being anti-christ to Steve Jobs - that people had CHOICE.Steve Jobs couldnt fathom letting people have choice.He would rather die than... well ...

So I can legally install iOS on another device, how about MacOS? I can also sell non-Apple devices with either operating system on them, right?

So you can legally download and build Honeycomb?

The difference: Apple doesn't claim their OS is open, yet they've still released lots of open source code. Google does claim to be open - except it's only open when they decide it's not too inconvenient for them.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.